AUG. 15 | 8PM

BRIAN WRIGHT

Imagine diving after a pearl of great price, only to find that it rests within a double-tough shell you must crack open with two opposing attempts: one about strength, the other surrender.

That’s how it went down for Waco, Texas native Brian Wright as he labored to land his gem, the new album Rattle Their Chains. That’s not to say he started on the wrong foot: far from it. He convened last summer in a Los Angeles studio, surrounded by a trusted core of country sharpshooters. And he brandished 18 songs, demoed and arranged meticulously so the musicians could follow his lead. Those who heard the resulting recordings hailed them as lean, tough and dynamic. They were also sure to enhance Wright’s reputation as an amazing live performer who doesn’t so much sing his songs as he leans into them, rides them bareback … telegraphs them with the intensity of a Steve Earle and the go-get-’em spirit of locomotive driver feeding one more coal scoop to his steam engine.

So yes, the songs on Rattle Their Chains are personal, but they also invite the listener to settle into them with all the pull of a beloved, broken-in couch. “I try to write a little less about me and a little more open to interpretation, so people can relate,” Wright says.

Besides Dylan and the Band, Wright also found himself drawn to “the storytelling of Texas songwriters. I find myself really into Townes Van Zandt; he had so many beautiful songs. Woody Guthrie, Willie Nelson, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Guy Clark and Kris Kristofferson all lived there; there’s something in the water in Texas that yields a poetic, left of center style of writing that seems unique to so many artists from there. It’s where all these great stories come from. But I’m also influenced by great rock and roll: The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Kinks and other bands like that.”